tage of rocks and bunches of
sage, until he had reached the thickets under the opposite wall. Once
there, he exercised extreme caution in his surveys of the ground ahead,
but increased his speed when moving. Dodging from bush to bush, he
passed the mouths of two canyons, and in the entrance of a third canyon
he crossed a wash of swift clear water, to come abruptly upon the cattle
trail.

It followed the low bank of the wash, and, keeping it in sight, Venters
hugged the line of sage and thicket. Like the curves of a serpent the
canyon wound for a mile or more and then opened into a valley. Patches
of red showed clear against the purple of sage, and farther out on the
level dotted strings of red led away to the wall of rock.

"Ha, the red herd!" exclaimed Venters.

Then dots of white and black told him there were cattle of other colors
in this inclosed valley. Oldring, the rustler, was also a rancher.
Venters's calculating eye took count of stock that outnumbered the red
herd.

"What a range!" went on Venters. "Water and grass enough for fifty
thousand head, and no riders needed!"

After his first burst of surprise and rapid calculation Venters lost no
time there, but slunk again into the sage on his back trail. With the
discovery of Oldring's hidden cattle-range had come enlightenment
on several problems. Here the rustler kept his stock, here was Jane
Withersteen's red herd; here were the few cattle that had disappeared
from the Cottonwoods slopes during the last two years. Until Oldring had
driven the red herd his thefts of cattle for that time had not been
more than enough to supply meat for his men. Of late no drives had been
reported from Sterling or the villages north. And Venters knew that the
riders had wondered at Oldring's inactivity in that particular field.
He and his band had been active enough in their visits to Glaze and
Cottonwoods; they always had gold; but of late the amount gambled
away and drunk and thrown away in the villages had given rise to much
conjecture. Oldring's more frequent visits had resulted in new saloons,
and where there had formerly been one raid or shooting fray in the
little hamlets there were now many. Perhaps Oldring had another range
farther on up the pass, and from there drove the cattle to distant Utah
towns where he was little known But Venters came finally to doubt this.
And, from what he had learned in the last few days, a belief began to
form in Venters's mind that Oldr